Through the Glass, Darkly
by T'Jara
Summary: Watching the episode “See Me” Season 2 got me thinking about when and how Eames first learned about Frances Goren’s condition. This is my take.


**~ Through the Glass, Darkly ~  
**

_Many thanks to outerbankschick for giving this story a decent beating... eeerrrr, betaing ;-)_

**Disclaimer:** Law & Order – Criminal Intent and its characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC/USA Network. No copyright infringement intended.  
**Rating:** T should be just fine.  
**Word Count: **3725**  
Summary: **Watching the episode "See Me" (Season 2) got me thinking about when and how Eames first learned about Frances Goren's condition. This is my take.

**A/****N 1: **Set right after "Yesterday", spoilers for this episode as well as "Maledictus", "Tuxedo Hill", "The Faithful", "Phantom" and "Seizure". Keep in mind, that with the timecards, "Phantom" (1x16) takes place long before "Seizure" (1x17), which in turn takes place before "Yesterday" (1x18) and "Maledictus" (1x19) and "Tuxedo Hill" (1x22). However, these last three cases all overlap and I fear in general I have to take some "creative license" on established CI facts. Don't sue if I missed something.

**A/****N 2: **English is not my native language. My apologies for mistakes and awkwardness in word usage.

**A/N3:** Before writing this, I did some basic research on schizophrenia, but I'm not a psychiatrist, so I can only hope that my descriptions of this illness aren't "far off". Also, we never really learned what type of schizophrenia Frances Goren has, so this is merely my interpretation of the information TPTB have granted us with.

*Reviews are always welcome*

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_When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love._

(1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verses 11-13)

*-*-*-*-*

April 9th

"_I will forward your request, but I'll leave it up to you __to explain this to your partner. Consider that an order."_

Jimmy Deakins' words rang in Alex's ears as she drove through the streets of Manhattan to pick up Bobby at the Public Library. They were scheduled to meet CSU to search Ilana Yushka's apartment. Luckily, Alex was an experienced driver and on her home turf - her thoughts were everywhere but on the road.

The captain only pulled rank when necessary and his fatherly tone had also conveyed a great deal of concern. He wasn't happy about splitting up a winning team, particularly because he wanted to keep both detectives on the squad and not tarnish either of their careers. The split itself would certainly fuel enough rumors, anyway. It was only fair that Alex had to break the news to Goren.

_But he brought this on himself._

At least that was the mantra that Alex had kept chanting to herself ever since she left Captain Deakins' office. It didn't seem to work. The closer to the library she got, the heavier her decision weighed on her heart. She felt like she'd been stabbed, but the truth was that she'd put the knife in her heart herself – she would have to deal with the hurtful consequences.

The problem wasn't that she didn't like Robert Goren. Quite the opposite, she genuinely liked and respected him. He treated her well, never making a fuss about her gender or giving a hint that he thought she was less capable of doing the job. His ability to pick up seemingly unimportant details frequently astonished her, and she had even come to be amused by the way he would sometimes "play" a person they questioned.

However, this was also where her problems began: She could hardly discern act from reality – and what was worse – she wasn't sure Bobby could, either.

When she had first heard that Robert Goren would be assigned as her junior partner, she hadn't bought into the "whack-job-gossip-tales" that everybody – even her father – felt compelled to tell her. As a female cop, Alex knew way too well how it felt being judged on the basis of prejudice and she wanted to give the partnership a good start.

Soon enough, she found the majority of the tales to be untrue or hugely exaggerated, but that didn't necessarily mean that the true core was easy to deal with. One moment, Bobby could be firm as a rock, the next, he was about to do something crazy. How was she supposed to react when Bobby cut himself in the interrogation room to prove that the suspect suffered from hemophobia? How was she supposed to tell him that she didn't think it was a good idea to sneak into a motel room where a homicidal maniac was pointing a gun at his children's heads?

Over time, these incidences had been the drops that hollowed out the stone.

Monday, after Bobby had shredded Jay Lippman to pieces by gently pushing all the right buttons, Alex had found herself at home in the bathroom, shivering in the shower, even though the water was quite hot. It wasn't the first time that she had thought about requesting a new partner, but it was the moment that she decided to actually go through with it.

Alex just couldn't digest how Bobby had circled Lippman - much like an eagle circled his prey, moving in for the kill just at the right second. Bobby's ability to think like a perpetrator, to anticipate the perp's feelings, seemed to run deeper than very decent profiling skills. Alex reasoned it was connected to the family history of schizophrenia and the "lots of experience" dealing with crazy people Bobby had mentioned, but he had never expanded on these tidbits of information. He always gave the perps a comfort zone, almost as if he understood them or even shared their delusion. As amazing and effective as his interrogation style was, it worried her. She was afraid that one day he would push it too far; he would cross the line into madness and not be able to return.

_Detective Goren's erratic and anti-social behavior, his volatile and bizarre interrogation techniques, lead me to have serious doubts about his judgment and mental stabilit__y. _

This was how she had phrased it in her letter, well aware that this could craft a serious dent into his thriving career. She could've made something up, but very likely that would have shed a bad light on both of them. These were her feelings, and she couldn't change them. She could only pray that she would manage to explain this sentiment to him, too.

Just as she was thinking this, Robert Goren's huge frame appeared in her view. Dressed in his black Burberry wool coat, he was standing on the curb, the leather binder and a roll of white paper tucked under his left arm while his eyes intently scanned the passing cars for the Ford Explorer. Alex had to acknowledge that he was laughably handsome. At over six feet, he had the build of a football player with wonderful broad shoulders to cry on and arms so strong that she'd sometimes wondered how it would feel if she were hurled into them. When in motion, he seemed to work magic: graceful, catlike movements; delicate but determined.

Determination was also what shone in his dark brown eyes, especially once he was on the heels of a perp. In general, his eyes were true windows to his soul – the slightest blink; the tiniest twitch of his pupils, was all he needed to convey his emotions. Alex sometimes wondered how this intensity, coupled with his cute little nose, his round cheeks and the classical jawline, would feature on one of those Calvin Klein advertisements. Especially on days like this when his chin showed just a little bit more than a hint of stubble. But then she had trouble imagining him in underwear, or even with his hair all ruffled like the models had theirs in the ads. Indeed, he always kept it short and trim, with just the lightest tinge of gray around his temples.

Yes, he looked mighty fine. Almost like one of those Upper East Side bachelors that many women longed to marry.

Alex had barely pulled up beside him when he virtually jumped into the car. The white paper rolls flew onto the backseat even before he'd completely folded his huge frame into the passenger seat, never mind settling in. Alex could tell that his visit to the library had been successful - the ecstasy of a dog who had caught scent beamed in his eyes.

"Hi, Eames."

"Hey," Alex answered, almost choking on the reply. As she pulled away from the curb, the words started bubbling out of him, but Alex only heard half of them. For once, she was absolutely happy that he let her drive, as it offered the perfect excuse not to look at him. Super sleuth that he was, he would've seen right through her – known that she was hiding something.

"… I went through Mattawin's quarterly reports and it seems they're making the biggest profits with a project called 'Tuxedo Hill'. However, information on Tuxedo Hill seems rather sparse… are you listening?"

His words twisted the knife in her heart. Bobby was well aware that he had a tendency to get carried away when puzzling together a case with his seemingly unlimited knowledge, so they'd adopted this ongoing joke that she only pretended to listen to him, and at times he'd interject these words or similar phrases into his explanations to lighten the mood just a little.

"I only look like I'm not paying attention to you." She uttered her standard answer, happy that she'd said it so often that it rolled of her tongue easily. The accompanying smile, however, was forced and she knew it definitely looked stiff, perhaps even phoney. Bobby would pick up on such clues, and when he smiled in reply, Alex could tell it was merely a façade, too. He had switched gears in his head, zooming out of the case while trying to figure out if his partner was simply having a bad day or whether something else was amiss.

"Is everything okay?"

_Oh, no…!_

The words broke right through her walls of self defense and set lose a wave of cold sweat. Alex had hoped for a few more minutes, had hoped that she could tell him on her own terms, not because he asked. _Maybe there's no good way to say this._

Alex took a deep breath, trying to suck in some last minute strength, but before she could start, his cell phone interrupted her. Its chirp pierced through the air, demanding, impatient. Louder than she remembered it - but that was probably because she was sitting on needles. And yet, she also felt relief. _A few more minutes. At least I get a few more minutes._

Bobby fished the phone out of his breast pocket and looked at the display before picking up, but when Alex expected to hear his smooth voice answering the call, he didn't. Obviously, it was a private call, maybe one of his dates – she knew he had plenty of them. It wasn't surprising at all - not only was he a charmer, he was a gentleman, too. The Chief of D's secretary, Denise, wasn't the only woman at OPP to lust over him.

Hoping that a little banter would distract from the big news to come, Alex glanced over at him, but the look on his face stopped her dead in her tracks. A heavy shadow darkened his features as if he'd suddenly gotten a bad migraine, and his shoulders slumped under an invisible weight. He let out a small sigh before answering the phone after all.

"Goren."

This definitely wasn't a date His voice was polite, though not "cop professional". Alex kept her eyes focused on the street, trying not to listen, trying not to invade his privacy.

She failed miserably.

"Good Morning Dr. Schimo… Well I can try to drive up tonight… Useless or not, I'd at least like to try to talk to my mother before changing medication…I understand... of course., I'll give you a call if I can't make it tonight… Goodbye."

As Alex heard the phone snap shut loudly, she could feel the energy between them change – like a clear break to anything that had happened before.

Bobby slid down in his seat and when she glanced over at him, he was staring out the window, withdrawing into his own little shell. For a master at reading body language, he wasn't the best at disguising his own – even when he intended to. Simply by the way his left hand clutched his binder, the knuckles shining through, she knew that he was fuming over that call. And what was more, he was also embarrassed to the bone. The two of them had formed a trustful partnership, but they hadn't yet reached the stage where personal information was shared freely. Even more so because Bobby was a man who guarded his privacy vigorously.

In moments like these she realized how little she knew about him. He had mentioned a brother on a few occasions, but it had always been stories from the past, nothing current. He spent even fewer words on his father; Alex only knew that he had been dead for a couple of years. The only family member that he mentioned fairly regularly was his mother, but he never offered any specifics. And apparently, she was sick now. Alex could only hope that it wasn't too serious - she remembered too well how afraid she had been by her mother's stroke.

Suddenly, she felt extremely guilty. Here he was, obviously floored because of his mother's condition, and she was just about to start kicking him. This wasn't right. She couldn't postpone talking about that letter forever, but she could at least make an effort to console him first.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

Alex knew it was a shabby tactic to turn the tables on him like that and she instantly felt his eyes on her, sizing her up. Maybe it was force of habit, but she felt like he was trying to assess if she was simply nosy or offering true sympathy.

"Yeah, it's okay. Just some troubles with my mother's doctors," he said finally, but his voice was so weak and unsteady, she almost didn't recognize it.

Over the past year Alex had heard him scream with excitement, bark with anger or whisper seductively, but she had never heard him like this: weary. She wasn't sure how to react, either. Should she inquire further, hoping to console him, or was his curtness a tell-tale sign that he didn't wish to discuss this topic any longer?

By the time they reached the next red light, Alex made up her mind to ask. It was too late for her to be afraid of spoiling the partnership, anyway. "Bobby,… I know it's none of my business, so you don't have to answer… But how sick is she? Is it serious? I know I was terribly scared when my mother had her stroke and all of the decisions we made seemed to weigh heavily…"

Bobby turned back at her, his eyes meeting hers again. At first, he seemed surprised by her candor, but slowly, his surprise faded into a relieved smile. "You don't know."

It was a statement, not a question, but one that confused her to no end. Alex felt her eyebrows rise on her forehead until they couldn't go any further. "Know what?"

"I thought the Captain told you before partnering us," he replied – but without sounding evasive. In fact, he seemed to chuckle with the delight of a man who'd just discovered he was operating on wrong premises and whose world suddenly made sense. Whatever it was, it was beginning to thin out Alex's patience.

"Told me what?"

The tone of her voice seemed to resonate with him, because he swallowed his laughter before answering. "My mother doesn't have a physical illness. She has schizophrenia."

_Zap!_

The words hit her, a punch to her stomach that made it cramp painfully. Alex spun around, not expecting to be looking straight into his face. He was waiting for her reaction, and she really wanted say something, anything, but her thoughts were racing through her head and she couldn't get a hold on any single one of them. They kept flying by, interrupted only when the taxi cab behind them honked its horn, startling them both.

Alex realized the stop light had turned green, but even after she set the Ford Explorer in motion again, the daze hadn't completely worn off. "I didn't know."

Bobby didn't reply, although he was definitely itching to. He was sensitive enough to know he'd just dropped a bombshell – and that he needed to grant her a few more moments to digest the news. Alex didn't know too much about schizophrenia other than what she'd heard in old wives tales. In fact, she wasn't even sure could pronounce or spell the word correctly. Maybe it would be best if she stuck with the truth.

"I think I know nothing of value about this illness, Bobby. Is there anything the doctors can do to help her?"

Again, she felt his eyes on her; but this time it was surprise. Evidently, he wasn't used to people inquiring about her illness – and only inquiring. Not judging.

"Well, that's why Dr. Shimo called," he explained, straightening up in his seat. "They have high hopes for some new anti-psychotic medication, but I'm worried. Changing meds is always risky, and she's been doing fairly well with what she's taking now."

"I see," Alex nodded. "It's not like you know she'll be symptom free with the new medication."

"You mean as in '_healed'_? No." There was unbarred sadness in his voice. "They can try to treat it, but it's gotten worse over the years, even the newest medication only has mild positive effects."

Alex shook her head in disbelief. "Years? How long has she had it?"

"We don't know exactly," Bobby answered. "When I was seven, she was definitely showing symptoms, but she wasn't diagnosed until her first psychotic breakdown two years later."

Alex's stomach cramped yet again – never before had she felt a similar distance between them; not physically, but in experience. His childhood must have been a constant struggle, full of uncertainty. Compared to that, she had grown up in a bubble, sheltered from any evil in the world.

"Seven? That must have been hard."

For a second or two, he seemed to be far, far away, somewhere in his past. "It was."

Alex switched lanes, taking the chance to look at him and at least offer a comforting smile. Not pity, just comfort. He literally grabbed it, cherishing it like ointment for his soul. It gave him the strength to share some more.

"It wasn't always bad though," he continued, turning to look out the window, but Alex knew that he was really looking inside himself. "At the beginning, her meds worked well and she was a good mom. She tucked me in at night. Took me to the library with her, shared her enthusiasm for books with me. When she was lucid, she was sharp as a tack."

_Just like her son, _Alex thought to herself. She didn't want to interrupt him.

"Of course, other days weren't that nice. When she had one of her paranoid episodes, I was afraid of her, and sometimes she was afraid of me. At times I knew the inside of my bedroom closet pretty well." He laughed half-heartedly, but nothing could undo the heaviness in his words.

"I learned to play along so I could console her, but I also learned to read signs so I could predict when and why the episodes would come. My father being around always factored into this, because he would cause stress in her."

"I can't even imagine what it was like," Alex said. She knew it probably wasn't too helpful, but she hoped he would appreciate her honesty.

He shook his head, but it really meant that he understood. "You don't have to. I'm not sure I always do. When I was young, I was angry. Angry at my mother for being ill, because it caused my father to leave. But in the end I understood that my father's behavior had contributed to their divorce, too, and she's my mom. I love her no matter what."

His words filled the car and dived straight into Alex heart. She nodded, but couldn't say a word. Her insides were melting and she felt closer to him than ever before. He'd opened himself and let her read a few pages of the book of his life, granted her some insight into his enigma.

For the remainder of the drive, neither of them said anything. Bobby, having just stripped to the soul, needed some time to regroup, while Alex used the time to let the information sink in.

Finally, everything made sense. When he was seemingly going over the edge with a perp, he was very much in control. His childhood experiences had sharpened his senses, refined his skills to read people, because he had needed those skills to survive. He had developed an instinct for following the perp's twisted trail of thought because that often times had been his only chance to comfort his mother.

They were already turning onto Hudson Street, where Ilana's apartment was located, when Bobby broke the silence. "Alex?"

"Hmm?"

"What was bothering you when you picked me up at the library?" he asked carefully. He'd recollected himself, but the newfound intimacy between them hadn't completely faded. "You seemed a little worried yourself."

For a second, her heart stopped beating. She couldn't tell him. Not now. Not at all.

"Oh that? That was nothing," she replied, shaking her head as if she could shake off her secret. "It's just that the image of Ilana's head in that box somehow has stuck with me."

He nodded. "It was gross. That image will stay with me for a while, too."

"Yeah," she agreed, while skillfully parking the Ford Explorer in the spot behind the CSU car. On the inside, she was only relieved that she had obviously averted a little catastrophe. But when Alex shut off the engine and caught the understanding reflected in his chocolate eyes, she swore to herself that this would be the last lie she would ever tell to Bobby Goren.

The CSU technicians were already waiting for them, and instinctively, Bobby unbuckled himself and reached for the door handle. Then he hesitated, seeking Alex's eyes once more. "Alex, does it scare you…? My mother, I mean…"

The question caught her off guard and it lingered between them for a few seconds, although Alex didn't really have to think about the answer. "No." She shook her head. "No, not at all…"

At that, he jumped out of the car - before Alex could finish her sentence. "It makes me understand you better," she whispered to herself.

It was then and there that Alex decided to withdraw her letter. She was lucky to have Robert Goren as her partner. Certainly, his style was unique and she would still need some time to get used to him. As her mother used to say, she would need time to "acquire his taste". Now she knew that his approach was based on a deep understanding of human behavior, and this was more than she could ever ask for.

Robert Goren was the best partner she could ever ask for.

*****


End file.
